Mahama Off To Banjul For Yahya Jammeh Mediation Talks

President John Dramani Mahama will on Tuesday, December 13, 2016 join other regional leaders to Banjul, The Gambia, to hold talks with the country’s leader Yahya Jammeh after he rejected results of that country’s election held earlier this month.

President Jammeh who has ruled The Gambia for over 22 years has annulled the elections and called for a re-run after earlier conceding defeat in Presidential polls.

He questioned the validity of the count after the electoral commission changed some results, even though it insists the outcome was not affected.

The UN and the African Union have asked Mr Jammeh to accept defeat.

President Mahama who recently accepted defeat in Ghana’s election, Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari, and Sierra Leone’s Ernest Bai Koroma are going to fly to The Gambia’s capital, Banjul on Tuesday to try and resolve the political crisis.

“I think he should step down now,” said Adama Barrow, who was declared the election winner.

“He has lost the election, we don’t want to waste time, we want this country to start moving,” he told the AFP news agency.

President Jammeh went on national TV over the weekend to announce his “total rejection of the election result…thereby annulling the election”.